"Why did you send Sorcha to the store?" The question had been bugging Malcolm for the last hour. "My mother had groceries delivered yesterday."

"Yes, but your mother didn't think to stock Twizzlers and specifically flavored Jello."

"Orange, red, and green jello should be made a crime punishable by a minimum of one year in jail."

"It's jello, Malcolm."

"It doesn't count as jello." It was an age-old debate. A bit of normal inside the chaos they were currently engulfed in. "It's colored gelatin. Flavorless colored gelatin."

"Black cherry and blue raspberry are good flavors, though."

Malcolm scoffed. "Lemon is the only acceptable flavor of jello."

Raya's lips twitched. "I lived on black cherry and blue raspberry while pregnant with Ritchie."

"That was because you were pregnant."

"So, all bets off when pregnant?"

"You lived on lime jello when pregnant with Christopher." Memories rose up inside Malcolm as he recalled that time. Good memories for a change. The kind he needed to help keep the shadow creatures from tearing his mind apart. "I had lime jello and crackers for when you visited me in DC."

"I'm surprised Kai wasn't lime colored when he was born with how many lime flavored things I consumed while pregnant with him."

"You did have that month you switched to lemon."

"Your not-so-subtle comments about the merits of lemon flavored jello convinced me to give it a try."

"And what did you learn?"

"That lemon always makes me think of you."

The fond affection in Raya's voice sent warmth shooting through Malcolm. So few people understood, much less accepted him and all his quirks. Raya, her cousin Barbara, Dick, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake never saw or treated him as a freak.

He was simply one of them.

Even the newest member of the family, Damian had come to accept him as part of the inner circle. Even if he doesn't see me as a member of the family.

Not that he saw any of the others as family.

Not yet, anyway.

Malcolm had a feeling Damian Wayne would come around to them being family in time.

"Peppermint always makes me think of you," he admitted quietly.

"And not Sorcha?"

"Jasmine reminds me of her."

"Our olfactory senses can have a huge influence on memories." Raya sent him a coy look. "As memory can have an impact on our fondness for gelatin-flavored desserts."

Malcolm breathed out a laugh. "Lemon is the only acceptable flavor."

"Hence why I sent Sorcha to the store to buy you some."

"While I am deeply appreciative of her going to buy lemon jello…" Malcolm smiled at Raya's snort. "Isn't it dangerous for her to be out there?"

Where John Watkins, Talons, and whoever Endicott had in his employ could get to her.

As they did the ghostly apparition floating just on the edge of his visual field.

"Sorcha has Damian and Kai with her."

"They're ten."

Were they average ten-year-olds?

Not in the least.

Ten was ten still in Malcolm's opinion.

"Kai is not only one quarter kryptonian but has been training with both his grandfathers, father, and uncles since he was five." Raya shifted to look at him. "And Damian is not only a trained assassin but also the current Robin."

"They're still ten."

"And have experienced things most ten-year-olds never will."

"I know, it's just…"

"You love Sorcha and want to keep her safe." Her lips curved. "Think I don't understand that?"

"I know you do. It's just… she's in danger because of me." Malcolm looked down at his hands. "You all are in danger because of me."

"Giving yourself a bit too much credit there, Mal."

"Watkins, Endicott, the Court…"

"Would still be out there and victimizing us and other people even if you weren't involved." Raya's hand settled atop his. Warm and comforting. "They're predators, Malcolm. That's what they do."

"I know. I know they are. It's just…"

"Everything changes when it's our own who's targeted." Raya's thumb stroked over Malcolm's knuckles. "I learned that when my father targeted you just to get back at your father."

"My father is why this is happening." His bitterness stung the air between them. "He's the reason everything has happened."

"We both were handed crap cards there, Mal." An understatement if Malcolm ever heard one. "However, we also are the luckiest kids in the world because we have people in our lives who love us for us. People who gave us homes and the tools to rise above our traumas and become the people we are today."

"Despite some having problems of their own."

"Oh, Bruce is a poster boy for unresolved traumas and phobias."

Complicated grief disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and antisocial personality disorder being a few of the disorders Malcolm most commonly associated with the Wayne patriarch.

"Like me." Malcolm sent her a small, wry grin. "Only I don't wear a mask and chase bad guys across rooftops."

"No, you wear Armani suits and chase bad guys into old service tunnels."

"You heard about that?"

"Oh, Gil called Bruce and asked him to send one of us to talk to you."

"Why didn't you?"

"Ah, let me see… Joker on loose, Scarecrow running another of his experiments, Penguin feuding with Black Mask, oh, and we had the Court killing people."

"Business as usual in Gotham."

"Kinda quiet for Christmas, actually."

Malcolm breathed out a laugh. Desperately needed after the last twenty-four hours.

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

"You didn't answer my original question, though."

"I thought I did by saying there's no Twizzlers and appropriate jello stocked in the house?"

"We could have ordered grocery delivery."

"Yes, we could have. However, that defeated the other purpose I had."

"Which was?"

"Getting two rambunctious kids out of our hair for an hour."

Malcolm snorted another laugh. "That's the only reason you sent her to the store?"

"No, I sent Sorcha to the store because she needed something to do that she was in control of."

His brow creased. "In control of? I don't understand."

"Don't you?" Raya spoke gently and all the more effectively for it. "She's a control-freak, Malcolm. Like me," she said before he could. "She's controlled everything in your relationship because she understood that maintaining a routine was critical to helping you. That's not easy to do, though, when you're suspected of murder. She can't control that situation because it's out of her hands. So, I gave her something she could control: shopping for foods she knows you'll eat."

"Is that why you always send me to the grocery store?" Dick drawled as he walked into the living room. "Along with the litany of other things you give me to do?"

"She's giving you the honey-do list, kid," came from Gil as he entered behind him. "As in honey-do this, honey-do that."

"You're telling me honey-do lists are an actual thing?" Horror filled Dick's face. "Seriously?"

"They are very much a thing, kid," Gil confirmed with a smile. "Jackie would leave mine in the glove box, in fact."

Dick slanted a wry look at the woman seated beside Malcolm. "Mine leaves mine in my boots."

"Get diapers, milk, and eggs is hardly a honey-do list."

"Still sneaky."

Raya harrumphed. "I see sending you grocery shopping as a way of giving you an hour to yourself."

One dark brow arched. "You send me to the store as a way of giving me time to myself?"

"I figure you earned it after everything you do for me, the kids, and the city of Gotham."

"You're a generous woman, Mrs. Grayson." Dick leaned down to place a kiss to the top of her head. "You find anything in Ian Corbin's files that will help locate Watkins or the other bodies he believes are connected to the Surgeon?"

"Locate Watkins, no." Raya slid her glasses back on. "I think I do know where the Surgeon's other bodies might be buried, though." She picked up her tablet and tapped the screen. "Ian Corbin mentions Martin Whitly using a slew of various hunting cabins and posits they're places where he'd take specific victims."

"Specific victims?" Malcolm swallowed around the ball of ice in his throat. "What specific victims?"

"His notes don't say but I suspect they were individuals who crossed either Endicott or the Court of Owls."

"Like Eve's sister, Sophie?"

Raya's brows arched over the rim of her glasses. "Your dead girlfriend's sister?"

"She wasn't—" Malcolm stopped; sighed. Now wasn't the time to argue semantics. Not with Talons and Watkins on the loose. "My father kidnapped Eve's sister, Sophie. She's the girl in the box."

"The one you found?"

Malcolm nodded. "Yes."

"Hm." Raya tapped the tablet. "Ian Corbin makes a few mentions of the girl in the box." She touched a corner of the screen before handing it to Malcolm. "He believed she was connected to whoever your father was working for."

"Endicott." Malcolm looked down at the tablet but didn't see the words on it. "Sophie was working for Endicott."

"How do you know?" Dick asked. "Did your dad tell you?"

"Yes." Malcolm handed the tablet back to Raya. "He took Sophie to a cabin where he…"

"Intended to kill her." Gil placed a hand on the back of Malcolm's neck, squeezed gently. "We know, kid. We also know what cabin he took her."

"Where?" Dick's eyes narrowed. "It could be a place to start looking for Watkins."

"The Watkins family had a hunting lodge they used." Gil moved to sit in a chair. "We thought Watkins took Malcolm there after he kidnapped him."

Pain throbbed in the thumb Malcolm shattered with a hammer to free himself from the cuffs Watkins placed on him. His chest hurt where the knife pierced his flesh, luckily missing his vital organs. His brain exploded with images of the confrontation between him and the man who revealed how his father took him on that trip with one purpose: to kill him.

"He didn't take me there, though." A tremor snaked from the tips of Malcolm's fingers all the way up his arm. To hide it, he reached for his own tablet. "He brought me here. To the place where it all began."

"This isn't where it all began, though." Raya set a hand on his back. Rubbed in slow, soothing circles. "Ian Corbin believes this all began before either Watkins or your father were born."

"Before they were…?" Malcolm's brow furrowed. "Their fathers were serial killers, too?"

A fact he considered himself many times while trying to understand serial predators like his father. Not all children followed in their parents murderous footsteps. He was living proof of that fact. There were a large number of children who did follow in their parents, though.

Was Martin Whitly one of them?

He didn't know.

The only thing Malcolm knew about his paternal grandfather was that he left when his father turned thirteen and was never seen or heard from again.

Was that the truth or another of his father's carefully worded answers?

Malcolm suspected the latter.

"You're close, actually." Raya again handed him her tablet. "Ian Corbin suspected they were Talons."

Malcolm stared at the images on the screen. He recognized his grandfather instantly. He possessed the same wildly curling halo of dark brown hair, eyes that could spark with warm humor one second or turn to ice the next, and charismatic smile as his father.

"If the Court sticks to their usual way of doing things…" Dick took a seat next to Raya on the couch. "They'll send your grandfather after you."

"As they sent William Cobb after Dick."

"William Cobb?" Malcolm told himself he should know who that was but he didn't. "Who's that?"

"My great-great grandfather."

"Just what we needed." Gil blew out a breath. "Another Whitly killer."

"Could be worse." Dick flashed him a lopsided grin. "Could be The Darkest Knight coming after Malcolm."

"Don't jinx it, kid." Gil made a face. "We have enough going on without adding anything like that to the mix."

"I wouldn't rule it out."

"I thought Batman Who Laughs was something Snyder created?" Malcolm looked at Raya. "He's real?"

"Snyder did create Batman Who Laughs." Raya's mouth thinned into a hard line. "The Court saw his creation and decided having a Batman of their own was the way to defeat Batman. So, they traveled to another universe and found their ideal Batman."

"A version willing to kill," Malcolm guessed.

"Yes."

"Only, they couldn't control this Batman." The grim expression on Dick's face sent a chill down Malcolm's spine. "Soon as he was brought here he went after Gotham's rogues. Starting with..."

"The Joker."

Dick nodded. "They fought at Ace Chemicals. Only instead of the Joker falling into the vat of chemicals, Batman did."

"Creating The Darkest Knight."

Again a nod. "Who possesses our Batman's intelligence and physical strength but the Joker's psychopathy and warped, sadistic sense of humor."

"All we needed," Gil muttered, running a hand over his goatee. "A Batman with the Joker's violent tendencies."

"How do we stop this?"

A loaded question if Malcolm ever asked one. It needed asking, though.

And answering.

The problem was?

"We don't have the answer to that." Raya placed her hands on the tablet in her lap. "Not yet, anyway. The files Ian Corbin and Deputy Turner amassed help us put the picture together. Neither, though, realized how convoluted and complex that picture is."

"What do we do then?"

"What we have been doing: searching for answers. Detective work is…"

"Time and patience." A small smile touched Gil's lips. "Glad to see a few of the lessons you three were taught have stuck with you."

Raya's lips twitched. "We were taught by three of the greatest detectives."

"Four." Gil indicated the tablet in her lap. "Ian Corbin is still teaching us."

Malcolm only hoped they'd learn what he wanted them to know before it was to late.

A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!